


When You Need a Hand

by LadyEttejin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, One Shot, Sam Winchester in Trouble, i never know how to tag things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:00:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyEttejin/pseuds/LadyEttejin
Summary: It was just supposed to be a quick little salt and burn, but Sam gets more than he bargained for.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	When You Need a Hand

It was a dark and rainy night, because of course it was. It always seemed to be raining when Sam was going to have to do the digging. If Dean hadn’t broken his arm in that fight with that werewolf the week before, then maybe it would have been easier. Maybe Sam wouldn’t have had to do this alone. 

His shoulders ached with every new shovelful he unearthed. The rain pattered down onto his back, rhythmic and cold and unpleasant, and suddenly he thought, _Dean could have been out here anyway. He could have held an umbrella._ They actually had one in the trunk. For one bittersweet moment Sam imagined throwing down the shovel, marching back to the Impala, and making Dean pull some of his own weight around here. But then Sam sighed and shrugged off that thought. The doctor had said to keep the cast dry for a while, so really it was a good thing that Dean was sitting safe in the car, parked inconspicuously on the road just outside of the farm property line. Sam would have liked to have been out of the rain, too, but that didn’t matter. Somebody had to dig up this grave, and somebody had to put Old Man Withers to rest.

 _Why do they do this,_ Sam wondered idly, and not for the first time. He took a moment and leaned on the shovel, stretching out his aching limbs. What was the point of a violent haunt? If they didn’t want to pass on, that was fine. That was absolutely their prerogative. From his own personal experience with the afterlife, Sam could completely understand somebody’s reluctance when it came to the everlasting. But if they did want to stay on earth, why would they deliberately run about causing trouble? Why would they draw such negative attention to themselves? 

Old Man Withers, for example. If he wanted to stay here, tending the old farmstead, that was totally fine. He could do it. More power to him. But attacking the neighbor’s sheep for no good reason? They did literally nothing to anybody. They were sheep. They didn’t deserve to live in fear of being disemboweled, and what the hell was that about anyway? Old Man Withers hadn’t been a butcher in life; he’d grown corn. Maybe he would have been upset at having to sell off acreage to the neighbors, which had happened after his death, but Sam still couldn't see how his anger would be directed at the sheep. From the conversation Sam had had earlier that day with their owner, Clive Decker, he could see how maybe THAT guy deserved a good disembowling. Total asshole, that guy. But he'd been completely ignored, and the sheep themselves didn't deserve it.

Sam wiped his wet hair from his eyes before he stabbed the shovel into the ground again. God, this was never easy. And it just kept getting harder and harder each year. Maybe it had something to do with dying repeatedly. Sam laughed quietly to himself as he flung another scoop of mud up out of the hole. Maybe he couldn’t judge Old Man Withers. Not really. Sam had never actually died and stayed dead, so he didn’t know firsthand what it was like to be a wandering ghost. Maybe it wasn’t fair to say what was reasonable and what wasn’t, when faced with an eternity of unending boredom. 

_Then again,_ Sam thought as the shovel finally hit the top of the wooden casket, _it's kind of hard to justify sheep disembowelment._ No matter how bored somebody got. 

He cleared off the top of the casket and pried off the lid. The stink hit him in a wave, and he covered his nose and mouth. For a guy who’d been dead nearly 60 years… 

Sam paused. No way a corpse that old could smell this rank. Immediately his defenses were up. He peered down at the body, wrapped in haggard linen. Something was off about this. What was it? Sam lowered himself carefully down into a crouch to get a better look. His eyes scanned down the length of the corpse, noting all the rips and tears and leaves in the linen. Noting the strange freshness of decay. Noting… the handless right arm, sawn jaggedly off at the wrist. “What the?” 

Then the corpse lifted its left arm and clutched Sam by the neck. 

Sam released the shovel, which fell with a clank against the plain pine box, and he grabbed at the linen-wrapped hand slowly cutting off his air supply. It was strong, so unbelievably strong. His brain whirled at a mile a minute. On one level, the battle – the physical act of fighting off the attack, almost second nature at this point. On a second, deeper level, the question – obviously not Old Man Withers’ ghost. Definitely Old Man Withers’ corpse. Grass and dirt on the feet. Often mobile. Currently aggressive.

With a burst of adrenaline, Sam wrenched off the squeezing hand and scrambled backward. He jumped out of the hole as the corpse staggered to its feet. It tried to pull itself up with its right arm, as if it had forgotten its missing hand, and scrabbled against the slick earth. For a second, Sam hoped it might not be smart enough to make its way out. But that hope was dashed, far too quickly. The corpse of Old Man Withers climbed out after him, slowly, steadily, and Sam watched it, measuring out his next move. Stabbing wouldn't work. Shooting wouldn't work. In this rain he couldn't set it alight. Damn, he wished Dean were here, instead of sitting cozy half a mile off.

A shriek tore through the driving rain. “You don't belong here!”

Sam whirled around to face the angry voice. A woman stood between him and the old farmhouse, her hair long and matted, the rain plastering her tattered dress to her skin. “This isn't your land! This is mine!” she shrieked again. She raised her arms, and then Sam noticed the bauble she held aloft in her left fist. A man's hand, entwined in binding. The world made sense again, although that was little consolation at the current moment.

He ducked as the corpse of Old Man Withers tried to grab him. Sam swung out with a vicious right hook, but even though he hit its face square on, the corpse didn’t react at all. Sam knew, right then, that he needed to attack the woman and not the zombie under her control, but he couldn't turn away, he couldn't back off, not when this undead monstrosity was coming after him so hard. He ducked and dodged and circled around, feeling the woman's eyes on him the entire time. She followed him, and she made the corpse follow him. The old bastard was surprisingly agile. Sam was beginning to tire out, but his opponent, being undead, was feeling none of that fatigue. It reached out with its linen-wrapped hand and got those bony fingers around Sam's throat. He choked as it squeezed. He kicked at it, but it was unfazed. The world began to blur. Sam sank down to his knees, clawing at the hand and gaining no purchase. Sam began to truly worry. The world went black.

Then, suddenly, there was a clang and a thud. The fingers around his throat relaxed. Sam's vision returned in a rush as he took in a full breath. The corpse of Old Man Withers collapsed to the ground in a clumsy pile. Sam shoved it off of him, and rubbed his neck as he stood up, coughing. “What are you doing,” he asked Dean.

Dean grinned and leaned one elbow on the shovel. Casual, carefree, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He gestured down at the lifeless body of the conjuress at his feet. “Saving your ass,” he said. “And bringing you an umbrella.”

Sam looked at Dean, and saw nothing but a half-soaked man with a shovel and a broken arm. “What umbrella?” Sam asked. “And you’re supposed to keep that cast dry!”

“It's in the casket. I had to trade it for the shovel, you ungrateful asshole.”

“Fair enough,” Sam said. He lifted the corpse of Old Man Withers and hefted it over his shoulder. “So it wasn’t really him. Should we salt and burn him anyway?”

“Nah,” Dean said. “He’s not haunting the place. Let him rest. But you’ve got to take care of her.” He reached down and picked up the binding-wrapped hand. His nose crinkled as he grimaced down at it, holding it as far away from himself as his arm could reach. “We’ll have to get this somewhere safe, too.”

“Sure, sure,” Sam said. “First things first. I’ll get this hole filled back in. You go back to the car and get that cast out of the rain.”

Dean laughed. “Okay, Mom, I’m on it.” He whistled as he sauntered casually back toward the car. Sam just shook his head.


End file.
